Yesterday morning, representing the Houston Atheists, I joined roughly fifty other secular Houstonians for a freethought coffee social. The meetup was organized by the Houston Freethought Alliance, with a goal of bringing our groups together for secular fellowship.

Scheduled to begin at 10:30am, this successful event continued well past the expected time of 1:30pm. There were familiar faces, leaders of the local organizations, and several new members of the secular groups in attendance. Together, we drank coffee, devoured breakfast, socialized, and networked. It was refreshing to meet people from different backgrounds and approaches to key issues of passion in the secular community, including state-church separation issues, and activism as a whole.

The highlight of this event was having the opportunity to mingle with the students involved with their Secular Student Alliances, future leaders of the secular movement. These bright individuals are knowledgeable about the issues secular Americans face, and are inspired to act towards strengthening our efforts. One student was most interesting, as she is an out atheist, yet lives at home with her conservative Christian family. The maturity that this young woman has developed as the ‘black sheep’ of the family, will take her great places.

Without a set agenda, this casual event allowed our conversations to blossom. Philosophy, sexual freedom, state-church issues, gender issues, and raising secular families were all topics of discussion. I left the freethought coffee social with a renewed sense of focus and an urgency to address local issues.